Durocher was one of five Hall-of-Famers on the 1969 Cubs that not only led the NL East by 8.5 games with six weeks to go, but were down 9 games to the Mets before beating them on the meaningless last day of the season to finish the season 8 games back. You really have to have lived through it (although as a Sox fan living in Cub-crazy Northwest Indiana, I didn't suffer through it) to have a feel for the magnitude of the collapse. Durocher was more than just a little responsible.

I am less likely to criticize managers for bullpen management. Sometimes moves or non-moves fail and lead to losses, but there is no way of knowing if the alternative would have led to a loss as well. I don't think I've seen Ventura make any mistakes this year so egregious as the one made by the Blue Jays manager Saturday. The DH and specific roles for relief pitchers that are expected out of every team anymore eliminates most of the decisions managers make, especially considering how heavily they lean on their pitching coaches when deciding when to remove a starting pitcher, although I don't know how much say the Jays' pitching coach had in removing Stroman.

All this Danks trade talk is quite laughable. No team is going to shell out 35+M before the trade deadline to get Danks and getting any return is not going to happen unless the Sox eat a large portion of his salary.

Durocher was one of five Hall-of-Famers on the 1969 Cubs that not only led the NL East by 8.5 games with six weeks to go, but were down 9 games to the Mets before beating them on the meaningless last day of the season to finish the season 8 games back. You really have to have lived through it (although as a Sox fan living in Cub-crazy Northwest Indiana, I didn't suffer through it) to have a feel for the magnitude of the collapse. Durocher was more than just a little responsible.

Leo played the same guys every day and wore them out. When the Mets made their move, there was nothing left to stop them. I missed it all. Roughing it south of the border, no contact with US sports news, no reason to check because they had it wrapped up. Crossed back into USA and they were still up a half game but the eventual outcome was obvious.

Who you gonna blame besides Leo? And of course, choking, which it's Leo's job to prevent. OK, I give some credit to a marvelous surge by the Mets. And chemistry. Leo walking off the team for a weekend to visit his wife's kid at summer camp during a crucial series. Pizza Man peeving off all of MLB and most of his teammates. Must have been a tight clubhouse that September.

Leo played the same guys every day and wore them out. When the Mets made their move, there was nothing left to stop them. I missed it all. Roughing it south of the border, no contact with US sports news, no reason to check because they had it wrapped up. Crossed back into USA and they were still up a half game but the eventual outcome was obvious.

Who you gonna blame besides Leo? And of course, choking, which it's Leo's job to prevent. OK, I give some credit to a marvelous surge by the Mets. And chemistry. Leo walking off the team for a weekend to visit his wife's kid at summer camp during a crucial series. Pizza Man peeving off all of MLB and most of his teammates. Must have been a tight clubhouse that September.

Good times.

Pitching stafff has to take alot of the blame for the collapse- when they lost 11 of 12 to give up the lead- they gave up 6+ runs in 7 of the 12 losses. To be fair to Durocher- not much of a bench to work with.

All this Danks trade talk is quite laughable. No team is going to shell out 35+M before the trade deadline to get Danks and getting any return is not going to happen unless the Sox eat a large portion of his salary.

Agreed. The Sox would need to throw in salary and will get a Nestor Molina type back at best.

I will always have a warm spot in my heart for the Mets. Looking back at that 1969 season,has to be one of the greatest things I have seen in baseball. Young people have no idea how the Cubs talked and ran there mouths off. Ron Pizza Man/Scab/ Santo was the main villain. He even said that the Mets infield belonged in Tacoma. Theres a old saying, If you're going to talk the talk, you better walk the walk. The Mets kept winning and and the Cubs kept losing in September of 69. Pizza Man never got over the 69 season. He has always talked about how great the 69 Cubs team was. Yet that same team was together for years and they were never in the playoffs once.

My point was that everybody knew who was in charge and where the buck stopped.

Me too. Those managers didn't care about any book, or rules of managing. They did the job as they saw fit. I know some baseball fans think Humpty Dumpty could have done just as well with those great Yankee teams as Stengel did.

Me too. Those managers didn't care about any book, or rules of managing. They did the job as they saw fit. I know some baseball fans think Humpty Dumpty could have done just as well with those great Yankee teams as Stengel did.

I don't care how talented the team is- if a manager delivers 5 consecutive World Series championships, 9 pennants in 10 years (one of the years they DIDN'T win- they won 101 games)- he was a pretty good manager-he was pretty innovative for his era- leveraging match ups for his starting pitching vs. specfiic clubs, an emphasis on the bullpen and platooning- pretty good write up here:

Agreed. The Sox would need to throw in salary and will get a Nestor Molina type back at best.

And then we'll need THREE pitchers to fill out our rotation (really 5, if you want some depth injury). Go out on the market to get a pitcher, and you pay Danks' salary for maybe a little bit better pitcher PLUS you give up your first round pick (which in our case looks to be in the 10-15 range next year, if not a little higher).

Me too. Those managers didn't care about any book, or rules of managing. They did the job as they saw fit. I know some baseball fans think Humpty Dumpty could have done just as well with those great Yankee teams as Stengel did.

Stengel was a huge proponent of the book when it came to righty/lefty match-ups. He platooned players depending who was on the mound.
Hank Bauer and Gene Woodling in lf/rf.
Moose Skowron and Joe Collins at 1st base
Bobby Brown and Gil Mc Dougal at 3rd base.
Yogi Berra and Elston Howard catching.
He had the horses to be able to platoon, most managers don't have this option.
Stengel went by the book and helped to popularize the book.